Manchester to Manchester?

I wasn't done thinking yet. Should I travel to England for just three days? I've traveled to the west coast for trips of that length - a little short of the distance to England - but this is going to be a vacation and not just a long weekend. I think I'll fly the Friday before the seminar and spend a few days wandering on two feet. Maybe I'll spend the entire time in the Lake District, maybe I'll escape the mountains and the lakes for a side trip, maybe...

Curious about what I might find? Check out the Enjoying page on Lake District National Park's web site.

Before I move off to dreaming of a vacation with my bike for earlier in the year, I started to look at transportation options, and at distances.

The distance doesn't really matter, but my curiosity got the better of me and I looked for a tool to show me point to point distances. I found MapCrow, a travel distance calculator. I suspect the distances shown there are air miles, and it satisfied my curiosity for now. Flying from Boston to Manchester, England shows as 3145 miles (5061 kilometers), and flying from Boston to Los Angeles shows as 2588 miles (4166 kilometers). So my gut feel for distances wasn't too far off.

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Manchester to Manchester?

I suppose it's a bit silly, but I thought it would be fun to fly from Manchester, NH to Manchester, England. I live mid-way between two airports, Boston's Logan Airport and Manchester Boston Regional Airport. While it is possible to fly from Manchester to Manchester, the flights between those two cities exceed my annoyance levels. United Airlines flies from Manchester to Chicago to Manchester, but I really don't want to start my trip by flying backwards. Somehow flying 1000 miles to the west just to turn around and fly those same 1000 miles to the east before heading out over the ocean to England just doesn't appeal to me.

OK, OK, I knew before I rambled down the Manchester to Manchester path that I'd probably be flying out of Boston. Manchester is a great choice if there is a non-stop flight from there (on Southwest) to my travel destination, but Boston is the right starting point for this flight. I found two reasonable flight choices - American Airlines via JFK, or British Airways via London. Either way I will only have one plane change. Those travel paths are a little more expensive than the wacky flights that go through Chicago, but I'll choose cash over aggravation. I'd rather pay a little more for my plane tickets and spend less time in the air.

I find it amazing that the price of the flight is just over 53% of the total cost of the airfare, with the remaining 47% allocated to taxes and fees.